Ptolemy I Soter

Ptolemy I Soter (367 BC-January 282 BC) was Pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt from 305 to 282 BC, succeeding Alexander IV and preceding Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Ptolemy, a general of Alexander the Great, was the founder of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt and the Levant, and he emerged as one of the most powerful rulers of Alexander's former empire during the Wars of the Diadochi.

Biography
Ptolemy was born in Macedon in 367 BC, the son of Lagus and Arsinoe; it was rumored that he was secretly the illegitimate son of Philip II of Macedon, making him the half-brother of Alexander the Great. He served with Alexander from his first campaigns, and he became one of his seven bodyguards. At the Battle of Issus, he commanded the Macedonian army's left wing, and he accompanied Alexander to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt in 332 BC, where Alexander was proclaimed the son of Zeus/Amun.

Rise to power
After the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Ptolemy was appointed satrap of Egypt at his own request. Soon it became apparent that the regent Perdiccas could only control the satraps by force and he and his army could not be everywhere at the same time. In 321 BC, Perdiccas marched against Ptolemy, but the campaign ended in disaster with a botched attempt to cross the Nile, after which Perdiccas' senior officers murdered their leader. They offered command to Ptolemy, but when he cautiously refused the bulk of the army marched away. Ptolemy was known to be one of the more cautious players of the series of wars fought between Alexander's successors, the diadochi, as they tore the empire apart in a struggle for personal power. Ptolemy hijacked Alexander's funeral cortege and brought his body to Egypt to be buried in a special tomb in Alexandria, the city which Alexander had founded in the Nile Delta, and which functioned as both the Ptolemaic capital and a major cultural center of the Greek world.

In 313 BC, Ptolemy conquered Cyprus from Antigonus I Monophthalmus, and Ptolemy and the satrap of Bactria Seleucus defeated Demetrius I Poliorcetes at Gaza in 312 BC. In 308 BC, Ptolemy conquered Corinth and Megara in Greece, and he briefly occupied Syria before Antigonus entered Syria in force and pressured Ptolemy to evacuate the region. In 305 BC, Ptolemy saved the island of Rhodes from Antigonus' invading army, earning him the moniker Soter, or "savior". In 304 BC, Ptolemy and the other satraps threw off the pretence of being vassals and declared themselves to be kings; for nine generations, Ptolemy's family would rule over the empire he created during the struggle with Alexander's other former generals. In 301 BC, he occupied Syria for a fourth time after Antigonus' death at the Battle of Ipsus, and, although he lost his holdings in Greece, he subjugated Cyrene in 300 BC and reconquered Cyprus from 295 to 294 BC. In 285 BC, he made his son Ptolemy II his co-ruler, ensuring that his succession to the throne would run smoothly. Ptolemy died in 282 BC at the age of 85.